[uf-discuss] hCalendar-Recurring Events Help

[MichaelMD]

On Sun, 2008-12-07 at 12:29 +0000, Toby A Inkster wrote:
> iCalendar does include support for recurring events such as this.  
> hCalendar is, according to its spec, "a 1:1 representation of [...]  
> iCalendar". Thus is can be assumed that it does include support for  
> recurring events, even if the spec is silent on exactly how to mark  
> them up.
> 
> Because of the fact that hCalendar is so vague about how a number of  
> iCalendar properties should be expressed in HTML, I've put together a  
> completely unofficial, but hopefully helpful draft called "hCalendar  
> 1.1", which you can find here:
> 
> http://microformats.org/wiki/User:TobyInk/hcalendar-1.1
> 
> Now, in iCalendar, the way to express a recurrence of the first and  
> third Friday of every month would be:
> 
> RRULE:FREQ=MONTHLY;INTERVAL=1;BYDAY=1FR,3FR
> 
> The hCalendar draft allows two basic ways of marking this up. The  
> first is a clumsy, all-in-one way, but is probably the best supported:
> 
> <abbr title="FREQ=MONTHLY;INTERVAL=1;BYDAY=1FR,3FR" class="rrule">the  
> first and third Friday of every month</abbr>.
> 
> A slightly nicer way, though one which you'll find less parser  
> support for would be:
> 
> <p class="rrule">
>    On the <abbr class="byday" title="1FR">first</a>
>    and <abbr class="byday" title="3FR">third friday</a>
>    <abbr class="interval" title="1">of every</abbr>
>    <abbr class="freq" title="monthly">month</abbr>.
> </p>
> 
> Both of these markup styles are supported by Cognition <http:// 
> buzzword.org.uk/cognition/>. Perhaps other parser maintainers could  
> reply to this thread to say whether they support either/both.


The perl parser I wrote a few years ago (still unfinished but
nonetheless very useful! - based around a tagsoup parser rather than an
xml parser so that it can cope with malformed real world data), doesn't
yet support recurring events rules.

I'm also a little wary of encouraging people to use recurring events
markup or features because from my experience in running an events site
people often like to post weekly events such as club nights but then
forget to come back and edit/delete then when the details change or the
night stops happening! (leaving their outdated listing hanging around
long afterwoods - not good!)
This an issue with human behaviour rather than one of software or markup
but it does make me a little wary of anything listed as a recurring
event on any site if the event looks like it was added a while ago.